Grant County Author Doug Fine presents work in Las Cruces

Doug Fine with one of the goats he began raising at his Funky Butte Ranch in Grant County during the events that inspired Farewell, My Subaru a chronicle of living sustainably and locally, without a large carbon footprint.

SILVER CITY — Author Doug Fine, who wrote his 2009 book "Farewell My Subaru" about living sustainably in Grant County, is giving presentations at the Las Cruces Convention Center this weekend. In one, he will present his newest book, last year's "Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution". In the other, he will continue the story he began in "Subaru".

Fine has a long history with Grant County. He began visiting the area in 1994 and has never really been able to stay away since. He returned in 1998 and lived for a time on Arizona Street in Silver City.

"I loved the area and I had friends here," Fine said. "It became sort of a southern home while I was living at the time in Alaska."

He moved here "for real" in 2005 after the publication of his first book, "Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man". In what would become a trend, his first book informed and inspired the next.

In 2006, Fine bought what he would rename the Funky Butte Ranch in Grant County as the first part of the process in writing "Farewell, My Subaru".

"I thought I had a low carbon mile while I lived in Alaska," he said of the amount of petroleum he used in a year. "Then after a few years of thinking I was a cool guy catching my own salmon behind my cabin, I started paying attention to my two-stroke engine and all that jazz."

Fine then began what he considers his "hypocrisy reduction project" - reducing his carbon footprint to as little as possible.

Advertisement

Rather than cutting modern technology from his life entirely, Fine decided to see if he could get all of the petroleum out of his life while still retaining digital age comforts. "Subaru" serves as the chronicle of his early efforts. Southwest New Mexico, in many ways, made the book possible and that will be the focus of his speech Saturday titled "Petroleum Free in One Year".

"It's a wonderful opportunity to speak locally," Fine said, "because not only do you know the climate issues, but the techniques are relevant for here - solar being a lot more prominent here than say hydro, which might be what I'd talk about in Portland, Oreg. or somewhere like that."

The presentation will include photos of what he calls his "carbon-neutral misadventures'. Much of the speech on Friday will be stories that have happened since the book's completion. For instance, his addiction to ice-cream and his dream of taking the carbon miles out of it is addressed in the book, but the book ended before he'd bred goats at Funky Butte to provide him with his own carbon-neutral supply.

"Petroleum Free in One Year" follows a presentation on Friday focused on his most recent book, "Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution". The book and the speech focus on the economic issues associated with what Fine sees as the end of the War on Drugs. All of this local goat and vegetable farming and living during the Subaru period led him to an interest in small cannabis farms in California.

"Through one local farmer in Mendocino County, Calif. I follow one locally and sustainably grown, locally delivered, medicinal cannabis flower from farmer to cancer patient," he said. "I got to see the agricultural process, the legal process, and even federal helicopter raids on growers."

With "Too High to Fail", Fine got a little jump on the recent political discussion on the subject.

"I wrote it postulating that the drug war was about to end even before the results of the elections in Colorado and Washington making marijuana legal in those states," he said. "And it was just based on what I'd seen while I was on the front lines of the War on Drugs."

Fine is amazed by how much support and how little backlash he has received.

"The apologies for writing about the end of the war on drugs have really stopped," Fine said. "Everybody gets it. Left-wing, right-wing, northerners, southerners, religious people, gun owners, liberals, everyone I talk to gets that the drug war should end... and rightly."

In line with the theme of his book, Fine chiefly cites the economic cost to the American public as reason for the agreement and the drug war's needed end.

In the wake of "Too High to Fail"'s publication, Fine has found himself discussing the topic on CNN, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Conan, Conan O'Brien's late night talk show. On the last of which, he had to stop himself in amazement that he was able to even be having this conversation on television.

"Really, though, the Berlin Wall of this has fallen," Fine said. "Maybe Oregon and Washington were the Berlin Wall, but it was ready to fall already."

In his essays and journalism since "Too High to Fail", Fine has gone on to write as if the drug war has already ended and where we go from there as a country. He's written about the small-town cannabis farmer he envisions and promoted outdoor cannabis farming rather than indoor, factory farming

Fine also just finished an ebook about industrial cannabis, or hemp, for the publishing imprint of the popular, educational TED Talks. In it, he explains his belief that the sustainability aspect of the end of the War on Drugs will be even bigger than the psychoactive aspect.

Fine got his start writing as an on-the-ground reporter in out of the way conflict zones like Burma and Tajikistan and more, including five continents, for publications like the Washington Post, Salon and National Public Radio.

Now, he and his family still live at the Funky Butte Ranch in Grant County.

"I've never heard anyone who has actually spent time here argue with "The Land of Enchantment," Fine said. "It is absolutely amazing to wake up every day to the sound of hummingbird alarm clocks."

These presentations are co-sponsored by the Las Cruces Press Women, Southwest Senior Lifestyle Expo, Green Chamber of Commerce and New Mexico Drug Policy Alliance. A suggested $3 donation at the expo benefits the Community of Hope Homeless Veterans Program.

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man has been charged with impersonating an officer by using sirens and flashing lights to skip to the head of the drive-thru line at a fast-food restaurant. Full Story

Sufjan Stevens, "Carrie & Lowell" (Asthmatic Kitty) Plucked strings and pulsing keyboards dominate the distinctive arrangements on Sufjan Stevens' latest album, and in the absence of a rhythm section, they serve to keep time. Full Story